


Saarebas

by Smutnug



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Light Bondage, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rough Sex, Slight Canon Divergence, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-02-12 23:23:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12970689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smutnug/pseuds/Smutnug
Summary: Prompt from sightsoblind:Mage Qunari Inquisitor: Would you prefer me in chains? Would that better suit your delicate Ben Hassrath sensibilities?And now he can't get that picture out of his head. The Inquisitor bound on her knees before him and absolutely nothing about it was sensible.Canon divergence tag for the relationship arc





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sightsoblind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sightsoblind/gifts).



_The Storm Coast_

She appears like a sudden change in the weather. One minute it's raining but calm, unless you count the battle cries and the clash of steel. Then he smells ozone and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. And there she is, feet planted wide in the sand, silver-tipped horns and cloud-grey skin with lightning dancing all around her.

_Saarebas._

_So-called_ Herald _is rumoured Vashoth mage,_ the Ben-Hassrath missive had read. _Investigate and report as to veracity._

It's years since he left Seheron. And he's seen his share of mages since: shit, he even works with one. But Dalish’s magic, though earthy and primal, isn't the same as what he sees here. It's feral, unbridled power, a storm made flesh, and he itches to bring it under control.

Sanaz Adaar is not much less intimidating after the battle, if he's honest with himself. The way those silver eyes flash when he tells her he's Ben-Hassrath, Bull's half afraid he'll be struck with lightning then and there.

“Why the fuck would you tell me that?” she snaps, in her incongruous Marcher accent, and his eyes are drawn to the light scars that cover her face. There's one that runs the length of her jaw, from her chin up to the lobe of her pointed ear, and he's so distracted by the thought of how it might feel under his tongue that he's taken by surprise when she grudgingly welcomes him into the Inquisition.

_Herald is generally suspicious of the Qun, but shows interest in Qunari life and culture._

When he tells her she's Tal-Vashoth, not Qunari, she laughs aloud. “You think the people around here care about the difference? All they see is a pair of horns. My parents raised me to be free; I don't care if that fits into your idea of what a Qunari is, I'm proud of it.”

Perhaps it ought to piss him off. But the proud toss of her head, the twist of her sulky lips, has his mind going in another direction entirely.

 

_The Hinterlands_

They're making their way toward Dennet’s farm when they come upon the templars, and that's when he notices it. At the sound of shouting her magic flares, tendrils of purplish light streaking up her arms, and she flinches. But it's not the attack that startles her…no, she could take these idiots blindfolded. What's got her spooked, Bull thinks, is her own power, and he realises with a chill that that first crackle of electricity wasn't under her control.

_Herald appears to have strong magical ability despite lacking any training, formal or otherwise._

He swallows down the pang of disloyalty as he leaves out the rest. No need to tell the Ben-Hassrath yet that she's a weapon with a faulty trigger: he doesn't want to be responsible for those ships launching from Par Vollen. No, there's time to work something out. Time to come up with a plan.

Meanwhile she's asking him about marriage, of all things, which leads into questions about sex because of course it does, that sultry, mocking twist to her mouth when she asks him if he's ever made love.

He's not sure if he's trying to shock her when he tells her about the _saartoh_ _nehrappen_ but it only half works - there's a hint of surprise in her silver eyes and a flash of something that might be interest, before she quickly changes the subject. It's enough to keep him awake long into the night.

 

_The Fallow Mire_

Sanaz is in a foul temper by the time they reach the Avaar leader, and the rest of the party aren't far behind. It's partly the fact that they've been trudging in the rain through stinking swamp water for days and every misstep not only gets their boots wet but lands them ass-deep in plague-ridden corpses.

But for her it's more than that. This piss-ant who calls himself the Hand of Korth has taken people, her people, and she's angry like a mother bear with a dozen arrows in her side.

There's little warning before she snaps. To Bull's embarrassment and relief, Solas sees it first and puts up a hasty barrier before they're all fried by the lightning that erupts from her hands, skittering across the surface of the shallow water they're standing in and bathing the courtyard in violent white and blue.

The Hand of Korth screams, but not for long - he dances like a puppet in the hands of a maniac before his charred body falls in the water, still twitching and sparking.

“Well, shit,” says Varric. “That what you meant to do, Silver?”

“Sure.” Sanaz shrugs, poking the roasted corpse with the end of her staff. “He asked for it.”

“Damn near fried the rest of us, too,” Bull growls. “Was that part of your plan?”

“Are you hurt?” she asks coldly.

“No, but -”

“If magic scares you, there's no need to stick around,” she snaps. “Now let's find our people.”

It's not until the Inquisition’s soldiers are found safe that the rage leaves her eyes, but he can still see the tension she carries in her posture, the white-knuckled grip on her staff, the compression of her full, dark lips. She looks down at her hands with a frown, and when she catches him looking her glare could freeze the blood of a lesser man.

“You go on ahead,” he tells Solas and Varric as they trudge back towards camp. “I need a word with the boss.”

They look to her for confirmation, and after a second she nods. “We'll catch you up.”

Bull watches her grow twitchier as he waits for the others to disappear from view. Finally she turns to him with a scowl.

“If this is about -”

“I'm not afraid of your magic.” His voice is as low and menacing as he can make it as he advances on her, but the only concession she gives him is a small gulp. “ _You_ are.”

Sanaz backs up to the wall, even as her expression remains haughty. “I don't know what you mean.” A foot slips on the wet stone and he catches her waist before she can lose her balance. “Let me go.”

“No.” He's got her back against the wall now, trying unsuccessfully to mask her trepidation behind anger. “You're out of control. Somebody needs to reel you in.”

Those silver eyes all but spark with defiance. “Would you prefer me in chains? Would that better suit your delicate Ben Hassrath sensibilities?”

And now he can't get that picture out of his head. The Inquisitor bound on her knees before him and absolutely nothing about it is sensible.

A growl escapes him unbidden, deep and possessive, and he tightens his hold on her. He can't miss the irregularity of her breathing or the way her pink tongue darts between those full lips as she stares at him. Slowly, so as not to startle her, his hand goes up to cup her neck and his thumb runs the length of her jaw. A shiver erupts through her body, and his cock twitches in response.

“How'd you get those scars?”

There's a catch in her voice when she finally answers. “When I was a child…a jar exploded.”

“Just like that?”

“No.” Her eyes stay fixed on his, daring him to judge. “I was angry.”

Without realising, he's been stroking little circles at the top of her scar, tracing the pad of his thumb over the irregular skin near her earlobe. He keeps his voice soft to match when he asks, “That kind of thing happen a lot?”

“No.” She sighs, unconsciously leaning into his touch. “Not a lot.”

“But it's happened.”

“I'm not dangerous,” she insists, almost pleading - it's an argument she's probably had a million times with herself. “I don't need to be controlled.”

Bull shakes his head slowly. “Everything needs to be controlled. You, me, the world…we wouldn't be here otherwise.”

“So what?” Her temper flares again. “You want to drag me back to Par Vollen? Slap a collar on me and lead me around like a pet dog?”

If she knew the effect her words had on him…he takes a deep, calming breath, releasing it as a low chuckle. “Adaar…” It's a good name for her, _weapon._ “I'm not here to convert you, or take you captive. I'm just a spy, remember? But I know a little something about control.”

He's not imagining the hunger in her face, the way she trembles like a taut bowstring. “You're going to control me, then?”

“No, _Saarebas._ That shit’s for amateurs.” His hand falls to her chest, fingertips just brushing the damp skin above her sodden scarf. “Real control, the kind that lasts, comes from within. I'm going to help you control yourself.”

It's amusing that they should be talking about self-control, when it's taking every ounce of his not to fist his hands in her dark hair and plunder that sulky mouth with his tongue. He knows she can sense it, too. Knows that despite herself, she wants it.

But not yet.

There's a moment that goes on forever, where the only sound is the steady patter of rain and the trickle of water down old stone walls. She bites her lip before finally breaking the silence.

“You're still working for the Inquisition, then? This isn't some Ben-Hassrath scheme?”

It's one and the same, he thinks. The Ben-Hassrath would be happy to see her in chains: happier, perhaps, to see her dead, if she wasn't the only one capable of fixing this mess. But as long as order is maintained, they'll let him do things his way. “I'm your bodyguard,” he rumbles. “I have to protect _all_ this.” He runs a slow hand down her side before finally releasing her. “And if that means keeping you safe from yourself, that's what I'll do.”

Sanaz is clinging to the wall like it's the only thing keeping her upright. Fuck, he's missed having a woman as tall as him; he could take a step towards her now, grab that fat braid in his hand and suck a mark into the silvery skin of her throat without even having to bend down. Instead, he satisfies himself with one parting shot. “Maybe one day I will put chains on you, _Saarebas._ But you'll have to beg me for it.”

Her jaw drops in what she'd probably like to think is outrage, but she swallows her words and settles for an icy glare. It doesn't have the effect on him she might hope. Rather, as he turns away he's imagining that glare as she's spreadeagled beneath him, lashed by wrists and ankles.

As he walks back to camp ahead of her he can feel her eyes still on him, and he resists the urge to adjust his pants. It's going to be a _long_ night.


	2. Chapter 2

_ Haven’s fortifications are ongoing. New recruits arrive daily as word of the Inquisition spreads, in no small part due to the actions of the Herald. The Hinterlands are now largely stable. The decision of whether to approach the rebel mages or the templars to close the Breach has yet to be made.  _

 

_ Haven _

The Inquisition’s base makes Bull uneasy: Sanaz can see it in the way his lone eye constantly darts about over the lake and towards the woods, up to the road and back again. 

It's not the most defensible position, she has to admit, but have they made any enemies powerful enough to attack their growing force? The templars and mages, even if they were openly hostile to the Inquisition, have their hands full fighting each other. The Chantry, having declared them heretics, are still too fractured to act beyond provocative declarations. And Red has agents in the field, gathering - 

_ Leliana,  _ she reminds herself with a flare of irritation. When did she start thinking in his voice? He plagues her, her gaze constantly drawn to him and she knows,  _ she knows,  _ that he sees it. 

Uneasy or not, he's been finding ways to relax. She's seen more than one Chantry sister walking stiffly and she supposes she should thank him for leaving the soldiers alone, for now.

But he's leaving her alone, too, and she's not sure how she feels about that. Not after the infuriatingly gentle touch of his hand on her face, the way his voice rumbled through her like thunder. When she tries to remember what he said to make her feel this way she can't grasp the words, just an impression of contrasts: cold stone and cold water trickling down her neck, warm hands and warm damp growing between her thighs. Fear and comfort, anger and desire. A dissonance that lingers and casts a shadow over her waking hours. And her dreams...well, they'd make even those Chantry sisters blush. 

That's why she's on her way to confront him. Not curiosity, or because she feels a pang of loss when she thinks of how close they stood, his body nearly pressing against hers. Certainly not because she thinks he's right - he doesn't know people as well as he pretends, if he thinks she needs his help. No, she just needs to clear the air. Get back to normal and then do what needs doing, without this fog that has begun to cloud her mind when he's around. 

“I need a word,” she snaps, and with an apologetic glance at Krem, adds, “in private.”

“Sounds promising,” says Bull with a smirk, and she curls her lip. “In here OK?” he asks, unabashed. 

Sanaz follows him into the dim interior of the tent. It's just big enough for the two of them to stand upright, if they stick to the centre. On each side are surprisingly neat rows of cots. 

She nudges one of the flimsy beds with her foot. “You sleep in one of these?” 

Bull laughs. “I don't tend to spend my nights here, if you get my drift.”

“It's not as if you're subtle,” she answers with a roll of her eyes. It's a large tent by most standards, but the presence of two Qunari make it seem crowded. Especially when one of them is the Iron Bull, a solid wall of muscle and sinew with his upturned horns nearly brushing the canvas.

When did he move closer? Or did she move closer to him? Suddenly she's standing near enough to feel the heat radiating off his bare chest, and she fights the haze of lust that's distracting her from her annoyance. “What you said about…”

“Control.” It's not fair, the things his voice does to her. And all her tricks that she used to wrap the Valo-kas mercs around her finger - widening her eyes, chewing on her lower lip, pushing her tits out a fraction - just make him smirk like he can see exactly what she's up to. Fucking Ben-Hassrath. 

“How were you hoping to achieve that, exactly?” Pleased that her voice doesn't waver, she fixes him with her most no-nonsense glare. 

When Bull chuckles she can feel his breath tickle her ear. “First we're gonna have to work on your temper.”

“I don't have a fucking temp-” 

“Ah-ah,” he chides, and at the same time two broad fingers rest on her neck. “Heart pounding. Fists clenched. Jaw tense.” Before she quite knows how it happened, his hand is resting on her abdomen beneath her tunic. “Stomach churning, breathing fast, muscles tense. Shaking.” His hand leaves her neck to fall on the small of her back. “Looks like anger to me.”

Sure, she's angry. Why wouldn't she be? And that's the only reason her heart’s racing. “Being angry at you right now doesn't mean I have a temper,” she snarls. “Go out there and try touching Cullen like you're touching me, see if he doesn't get angry.”

“Tempting,” he says with a flash of teeth. “But when Cullen gets angry, things don't explode.”

“I haven't exploded you yet,” she points out. 

“Not today.” Why didn't she notice before now that the hand on her belly is stroking her bare skin, soothing her like Dennet might a skittish horse? Worse, it's working. “Only because you don't feel threatened.”

“How do you know I don't?” She's alone with the self-confessed enemy of her people, who seems to have taken it upon himself to touch her whenever and however he pleases. Who calls her  _ Saarebas,  _ dangerous thing, and intends to tame her. 

She should feel threatened. 

“Because you haven't lit me up like  _ gaatlok. _ ” Bull's breathing slowly and steadily, and she realises her own breath has slowed to match his. He can feel it through his hands, the smooth rise and fall of her diaphragm. “Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with self-preservation. Half the shit I do in battle I do without thinking, but that's muscle memory. Fight from a place of anger, and you make mistakes. You fuck up, you endanger yourself and the people fighting beside you.”

She recalls the storm she called down in the Fallow Mire. In that moment she cared for nothing but to lash out. It wouldn't have been acceptable in the Valo-kas and it sure as shit wasn't acceptable in the Inquisition. 

“I wasn't like this before,” she insists. “Not for years. Why is now different?” 

“Simple,” he answers. “The stakes are higher. You're under pressure to fix everything and you're wound tighter than Bianca. Keep going the way you are, it'll just take a spark to set you off.”

“I can't change that,” she protests and his grip on her tightens, forcing her to stand up straighter. 

“Breathe,  _ Saarebas.” _

“Don't call me that.”

“I'll stop calling you that when you're not dangerous.”

“And when is that?” she demands. “When I'm bound?”

“In a way.” There's a feral glint in Bull's lone eye as his fingers trace her ribcage, up to her leather breastband to rest over her heart. “When you stop thinking with this…” His other hand travels up her spine and cradles the back of her head, so gently, as if he couldn't crush her skull without breaking a sweat. “And start thinking with this.”

With his palm resting in the valley between her breasts, most of her thoughts come from somewhere else entirely. “How?” she asks, forcing herself to meet his stare. 

“You can't fix the situation you're in, so you've got to learn how to deal with it better. Relaxation - controlled breathing, meditation. And other things help. Delayed gratification. Strict routine. Physical activity.”

He's deliberately making all this sound suggestive. Then again, with Bull it very well might be exactly what it sounds like. “What sort of physical activity?” she can't help but ask. 

It's close quarters and they're both large and horned. Nevertheless, he manages to land her flat on her back between the cots without so much as knocking the lantern that hangs from the crosspole. As she lies there with the air driven out of her lungs, he grins down at her. “When we're in Haven you train with the Chargers. No magic.”

“That's not fair!” she wheezes. 

“No, it's not,” he agrees. “You're bigger than them and probably stronger than most. Won't stop you getting your ass kicked, mind you.”

“Fuck you, Bull,” she retorts, just in time to catch his smooth chuckle as the tent flap falls shut behind him. 

 

_ Rebel mages are indentured to Magister Gereon Alexius of Tevinter, in service to an organisation called the Venatori. Herald argues an alliance with mages will inconvenience Venatori and provide the Inquisition with assistance in sealing the Breach. While both these reasons are valid, suspect her primary motivation is to help the indentured mages. Alexius has specific interest in Herald. Will report further, if she doesn't get us all killed first.  _

 

_ Redcliffe _

“That staff's in pretty good shape, Dorian.”

The Vint mage arches a perfectly sculpted brow, but doesn't deign to respond to Bull's needling. Unperturbed, the Ben-Hassrath grins. “Do you spend a lot of time polishing it?”

Dorian groans, and Sanaz takes pity on him. “Stop that, Bull.”

He shifts in his saddle and rolls his impressively muscled shoulders. “Yeah, I figured you were the jealous type.”

“I'm not - Andraste’s tits, can we just get the job done?” They're approaching the road that will lead them into the village, and she turns to Dorian. “If you don't want to give the game away we'd better part ways here. Are you sure you don't need a code, to let you know when to step in?”

“No need, my dear Herald," he says with a wink. "I have excellent dramatic timing.”

Bull waits until they're out of the mage’s earshot to speak quietly. “Trust him?” 

“As much as anyone.” She's been short with him since they set out from Haven, the humiliating defeat he dealt her in the practice yard yesterday and nerves about the meeting with Alexius conspiring to make her snappish. “I trust our people. They won't see us coming.”

 

In the end, the meeting holds surprises for everyone. 

Sanaz and Dorian land back in the present with a jolt, and although she's just come from killing Alexius she's not beyond doing it again. To his credit, Bull reacts before she can: it's only his heavy hand on her shoulder that prevents her from unleashing storm and fury on all present, regardless of guilt or innocence. 

“Breathe, boss,” he murmurs, and she's reminded of his voice low in her ear in another time, far in the future and not so long ago. She breathes, and the boiling rage slows to a simmer. 

It's not until later, when Alexius is in chains and the rebel mages have joined the Inquisition, that she allows herself to think about that nightmarish vision of the future - no, not a vision, she was there. Dorian was there. And Varric, and Leliana, and Bull…

“Boss.” He lowers his bulk onto the log where she sits. “Want to talk about it?” 

“I'm fine,” she responds automatically. 

“You're shaking all over.” His hand brushes the back of her neck, and all she wants to do is go somewhere they can't be heard and ride him until she doesn't see the future burned on the back of her eyelids. She's sure she's never wanted anybody so much. His blood seems to call to hers, relentless as the moon pulling on the tide. 

“I saw you dead.” The words spill out before she can stop them. “You and Varric went out to hold off the demons so we could get away, and then… _ fuck.” _  Unbidden sparks fly between her fingers. 

“So I couldn't hold off a demon army?” he says mildly. “Well, that's disappointing. You should get some rest, boss.”

“I don't want rest. I want -” 

“Rest,” he says more firmly. “Anything else can wait for now.”

He doesn't know, she thinks sourly as she climbs into her bedroll alone. The moment before he went out that door, the hand on her shoulder, his voice, raspy with lyrium, close by her ear. 

“If you make it back,  _ Saarebas,”  _ he'd murmured so only she could hear, “don't let me die again without fucking you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Writer's blooooock!
> 
> Have some smut.

_Survived the assault on Haven. Inquisition has relocated to an abandoned fortress in the Frostbacks and Herald has been named Inquisitor. Current focus is on gathering intelligence about the corrupted templars and investigating the disappearance of the Grey Wardens - may be linked through Corypheus._

 

_Crestwood_

“Nice!” Bull yells as Sanaz fells the dragon with a final, precise blast of energy. She throws him a grin, glowing with well-deserved pride.

“Can we do another one?” she calls.

“Alas, not today.” Dorian pokes the dead beast gingerly. “I believe our friend here may have had an exclusive claim over the region. Such a shame, I do love a good, sweaty battle.”

Bull swings his greataxe back into its harness. “Hey, if it's sweat you're after -”

“I was being facetious, you oaf,” the mage snaps. “I've had my fill of large, dumb beasts for today.”

“Interesting choice of words,” he teases. “I bet I could give you your fill.”

Dorian unleashes a stream of invective in Tevene, unaware or more likely uncaring that Bull understands every word, most of which have to do with the sexual proclivities of his mother. If he knew the woman, he might even be offended.

Sanaz shakes her head at both of them, her lips pressed together in suppressed mirth. “We should get back to camp, send some scouts down here to salvage what they can. I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use a wash.”

Shame, Bull thinks. He likes her just as she is, covered in a sheen of fresh sweat and streaked with dragon's blood. He'd like to hold her down and lick every drop of it off her skin, then flip her over and -

“Bull,” she calls over her shoulder. “You coming?”

With a last long, admiring glance at the felled dragon, he follows.

There's a pool not far from camp, recently cleared of wyverns, and she insists on the men going first. “I have to write a report for the advisors and I'd rather get it out of the way,” she explains. “Besides, Dorian, I couldn't let you walk around looking all unkempt a moment longer.”

“Unkempt?” the mage says in horror. “Say no more, I'm going to bathe.”

Crestwood is warm beneath the blue skies that have covered it since the storm broke, but there's still a bracing chill to the water. While Varric steps in gingerly and Dorian is still disrobing, Bull ploughs into the centre and ducks his head under, relishing in the sting of the cold before his body quickly adjusts to the temperature.

“Careful!” Varric complains. “Some of us are trying not to get drowned in your wake.”

Bull grins at the mage, unexpectedly soaked and glowering. “Quite the stink-eye you've got going, Dorian.”

He shakes his head in disgust. “You stand there, flexing your muscles, huffing like some beast of burden with no thought save conquest.”

“That's right,” Bull says. “These big muscled hands could tear those robes off while you struggled, helpless in my grip.” He keeps his voice low and sensual, carefully enunciating each word and watching with amusement as Dorian’s eyes widen.

Varric hastily finishes scrubbing himself down and clambers out of the pool. “Well, I think I'm clean enough. See you back at camp.”

Dorian hasn't seen the Inquisitor emerge from the cave’s mouth. She's paused there for the moment, her mouth hanging open and her fingers squeezing tightly around the bar of soap she carries - it seems safe to assume she's caught the last of their conversation.

His words are still addressed to Dorian, but he's looking beyond the Vint to Sanaz, watching her tongue dart between her lips and her eyes go glassy. “I'd pin you down, and as you gripped my horns; _I. Would. Conquer. You.”_

“Uh. What?” Flustered, Dorian has given up fumbling at the straps of his armour and looks at Bull with the same vacant stare.

It's almost too easy. “Oh,” he says in mock confusion. “Is that not where we were going?”

“No. It was very much not.” Sanaz chooses that moment to clear her throat and Dorian spins around, turning an even pinker shade of bronze. “Oh, for -” He glares furiously from one Qunari to the other. “You two can have your foreplay, but kindly leave me out of it!”

“Dorian!” She protests. “I didn't…I wasn't…”

“There's only so much sexual tension a man can take,” he says haughtily. “I'll bathe later, Maker knows I need it after that display.”

“Yeah,” Bull agrees. “You seem like you could use a cold bath.”

 _“Vishante kaffas!”_ the mage swears in parting.

Now it's just him and the Inquisitor, carefully avoiding eye contact as she unwraps the scarf from around her neck. “Are you nearly done?” she asks stiffly.

“Just about, but don't mind me. I've seen it all before.”

“I don't doubt it.” She crosses her arms over her chest, even though it's still covered by a leather breastplate and several layers of fabric. “But I'd rather wait.”

“Seems unfair.” Bull rolls his glistening shoulders. “Since you get to see me naked.”

“I - no I don't!” she says in alarm, eyes drawn unwillingly to the water just above his waistline.

He begins to wade towards the shallows. “Better look away then, boss.”

“Wait…ugh, you're impossible.” She turns her back, but he can see her twitching with curiosity. Just as well she doesn't indulge it, he thinks as he gathers up his pants. If she turned around now, she'd see she's not the only one affected by his teasing.

“Later, boss,” he says as he sidles past her. Cold water is not all it's cracked up to be.

He tries not to think about what she's doing now. First she'll shrug off her coat and lie it neatly on dry ground. Boots, breastplate and tunic will follow. Then she'll peel off those tight pants…he growls, startling the requisitions officer.

He needs to hit something, but unless some unlucky bandits happen by he's stuck with swinging his axe around, practising defensive drills.

The Inquisitor’s training has been coming along well, back at Skyhold. He's seen her shift from merely reacting to thinking, planning, delaying the opportunity for a weak hit in favour of letting her opponent get closer and open themselves to attack. This lack of impulsivity has mostly carried over into battle, but there's still something…heightened emotions don't make her lash out as often, but there's still that feeling of a storm building, a power she can't fully control.

By now she'll be emerging from the water, silver skin glistening and unbound hair hanging wet down her back. He remembers the way she looked at him, eyes glazed and lips parted…if he went back now, perhaps…

If he went back now, it would end in them rutting like beasts, breaking the tenuous threads of self-control they've built over the past months in pursuit of a moment’s frantic pleasure. The dragon fight fresh in their minds, the blood would roar in their veins and they'd be at each other tooth and claw, wrestling and claiming and _fucking,_ and it would be primal, feral and glorious, and the worst idea possible.

Fuck. They should have journeyed back to Caer Bronach tonight, where at least he might have found a randy scout willing to help him burn off some energy. He's been curious to see what Charter’s like in the sack. Instead he'll likely be sharing a tent with Varric, and he's definitely not the dwarf’s type.

Sighing, he sheathes his weapon.

 

The air is filled with the sound of insects, the soil still damp from the rain. Sanaz isn't sure what brought her out here, only that she woke warm and restless, something in the night calling to her _come find me._

She nods to the single scout on watch before looking out over the landscape, little more than a mass of dark shapes under the star-speckled sky.

Her eyes adjust and there it is, a hint of silent movement near a distant pile of rocks, little more than a shift in weight. The glitter of a single eye watching, waiting.

She moves away from camp, and when she nears Bull he turns without a word and walks away, with the obvious expectation that she'll follow. And follow she does, without questioning why.

The ground slopes upwards. The grass is damp beneath her bare feet, the air chilly through her thin shirt, but the only thing that seems substantial is the warrior moving ahead of her, the silvery expanse of his back gleaming faintly until he disappears into the shadowed mouth of a cave.

Inside it's too dark to see him. Even when big hands seize her wrists and she's pressed up against the cave wall, there's little more to focus on than a shifting mass of grey. Instead she must rely on feel: the press of calloused thumbs on her palms, the rasp of stubble and hot breath against her neck.

“Hold,” he commands, and wraps her fingers around a high beam. Deft hands unfasten her shirt and faster than she would have thought possible he's found the knot that ties her breastband and unravelled the fabric, repurposing it to secure her wrists above her head.

All her instincts of self-preservation seem to have fled. Instead there's a sense of relief at having someone else take charge for a change, even if she knows she shouldn't trust his motives. Then his mouth closes warm over a peaked nipple, and she's startled into crying out. At once he withdraws. “Shh.”

“S-sorry,” she gasps. “It's been a while.”

“Shh,” he repeats, his hands now cupping her full breasts, thumbs brushing tantalisingly over their peaks. “Two rules. No magic, no sound.”

“How am I supposed to -”

His hands leave her, and to her shame she whimpers at the loss. But no sound, he said, so she swallows her noise of protest.

Bull's approval is wordless, hands returning to stroke and knead at her hungry flesh, his skin rough but his movements gentle. It has been a while, too long. A year, since…? As if sensing her wandering attention, he pinches her nipple just shy of pain, rolling and tugging it between thumb and forefinger.

“You like that?”

She's silent. It's a trick, a test, and she passes. His horns brush her shoulders as he ducks his head to her breast once more, teasing around one dark aureole with his tongue. Flicking, circling, the light scrape of teeth, then his lips close around it and…

The flicker of electricity might as well be a lightning strike, sudden and shocking against the darkness. He leaves her again, his voice heavy with disapproval.

“What did I say, _Saarebas?”_

“I can't help it,” she offers weakly.

“You need to _learn._ Show me you can control yourself.”

She doesn't have feelings for him. Not more than this foggy lust she half suspects he's manipulated her into - he's a Ben-Hassrath for fuck's sake, a follower of the Qun, everything she hates. But it stings to be reminded this isn't about sex for him. It's about her training, turning her into a more efficient weapon, and he's only touching her in this way because he knows it's what she wants.

And that's why she won't tell him to go fuck himself, because even for the sake of her pride she can't give up the hope that he'll reward her again with those clever fingers and wicked mouth, that if she's good enough he'll take her like her body's been crying out for, hard and dirty.

She digs her nails into her palms. It's a matter of pride, now, at least as much as wanting him to get her off she wants to show him she can keep her power leashed.

This time his fingers work at her laces and she chokes back a whine of anticipation. A fist at the base of her braid drags her head back then his fingers are between her legs, spreading her open to collect the wetness pooling there.

“You can breathe,” he says, and although her shuddering intake of air seems louder than any sound she's made up until now he doesn't stop, pushing a thick finger inside her reluctant body. “It has been a while, huh?” His thumb presses on her clit and she arches, already so close. _Please,_ she begs silently, _harder, deeper_ and he obliges, pumping in and out with a twist of his corded wrist, working her swollen nub beneath the pad of his thumb until she feels her climax building, rolling in like storm clouds, tightening her muscles in preparation for release…

But before she gets there, treacherous fingers of lightning snake over her skin, and abruptly she finds herself cold and empty, not even the fist in her hair remaining of his touch.

"Fuck! I didn't - don't stop, please..."

“Sorry, boss,” he sighs. “If you can't come without doing that…” He tugs up her pants and reties the laces. “Then I guess you don't get to come.”

“Who says I need you for that?” she spits back and he laughs infuriatingly.

“If you've got everything you need, not sure why you're not still in your tent.”

“Fuck you, Bull.”

“Not tonight, boss.” He moves away, quieter than such a big man has any right to be. “I'll see you in the morning.”

“Wait,” she stammers, panicking. “You can't leave me tied here!”

“You're not tied.”

It's true, she realises when she releases her hold on the beam. The fabric is still wrapped around her hands, but there was nothing keeping her from pulling free. Nothing but a single word of command.


	4. Chapter 4

_Skyhold_

She doesn't know how hard it was for him to walk away, but he's not about to tell her. Bull can't entirely blame her for being furious with him - fuck, when he thinks of how it could have played out if he wasn't so concerned with discipline, he's pretty pissed with himself. She was so slick and hot, so eager, so responsive, so damn _close_ to coming on his fingers.

But she's got to learn control, he reminds himself again and again on the journey back from Crestwood. He can't send mixed signals by rewarding her for failure. She likely won't ever thank him for it, but she'll be a better fighter. And he can send his reports to Par Vollen and tell them, truthfully, that the Inquisitor is a threat to nobody but her enemies.

Bull hopes never to number amongst them.

At least she accepts his peace offering, an invitation to drink at the tavern back in Skyhold.

“Dragons are the embodiment of raw power,” he explains to her between gulps of throat-scouring _maaras-lok._ “But it's all uncontrolled, savage…so, they need to be destroyed. Taming the wild. Order out of chaos.”

A shadow crosses her face. “You'd want to see me destroyed, then? If I couldn't be tamed?”

“The antaam would, sure. Not me.” He reaches across to fill her drink. “Because I know you _can_ be tamed.”

“I think that depends on your definition,” she says tartly, but she accepts the tankard.

“Ha ha! Maybe you're right. I'm still game to find out if you are.”

Saanaz chokes on the burning liquor. “Now?” she splutters.

“Not now, boss.” He rests a hand on her arm, ignoring the bolt of pure heat the touch sends through his belly. The drink. It's just the drink. _“Maaras-lok_ is good for a celebration, not so good for self-control.”

By the night’s end she’s half asleep on his shoulder and there's no way he can blame the drink for the way his pants are tenting.

“Let's get you to bed, boss.” He lifts the tipsy Inquisitor from her chair, steering her in front of him.

“Upstairs, yeah?” With the single-mindedness of the very drunk, she's already taking the stairs up to his room.

“Hang on,” he protests, “I meant your bed!”

“Too far.” She's not a frequent drinker but she is a Qunari - no, a Vashoth, he reminds himself sternly - and it takes more than liquor to slow her down. Might as well try to catch a charging bronto. And now she's in his room, and already kicking off her boots, clumsily unlacing her bodice.

“Mmm, I like your bed,” she announces, sprawling atop the mattress. “Mine's too soft.”

Bull's been around long enough to know he should pick his battles, and ejecting a drunk woman close to his own size from the place she's made herself comfortable isn't one he's about to fight. With a sigh he fills the space next to her, the bedframe groaning loudly under their combined weight.

“You said it's been a while,” he says finally.

She has to lift her head to turn it, narrowing her silver eyes. “So?”

“There a story there?”

“Not one I'm going to tell you.” She keeps her eyes on his face, her lips pursed. “Fine,” she snaps after just a few breaths. “He's dead, if you must know. Hacked to death by antaam soldiers who stumbled on an armed Vashoth and didn't stop to ask questions.”

“Shit.” And here he'd thought her dislike of the Qun came solely from her parents. “I'm sorry.”

“Why? Wasn't killing Tal-Vashoth your job once?” There's no rancour in her question, just a dull curiosity.

“Well, yeah, in Seheron. In the middle of a war. Everyone was trying to kill everyone.”

“But you think we're savages, right? Little more than beasts?”

“I did,” he admits. “If you'd seen the shit I saw in Seheron, you'd think the same. They had no discipline, no morals, no honour.”

“Honour?” Sanaz laughs, and this time her bitterness is apparent. “He had more honour than the animals who killed him could ever hope for.” She reaches out, his stubbled cheek scraping her thumb. “I'm sorry. I know you're not one of them. Not really.”

“I am.” Why he'd insist that he's the same as the men she hates while she's looking at him like that...but he's _Qunari_. It's all he's ever been. The years of indulgence, drinking, fucking, friendships with those not of the Qun, can't change who he is. Because then he'd be Tal-Vashoth, and to be Tal-Vashoth is to be nothing at all.

“No.” She smells of spices and liquor. She's all silver and darkness, the colour of thunderstorms, and her lips are right there, full and parted and so fucking _kissable_ he feels like his cock might explode.

“We're not going to fuck,” he finds himself saying. “Not tonight, not ever. It's not how things are between us.”

Rather than hurt, she seems amused. “Just training. I get it. Keep saying it, Iron Bull, you might even believe it yourself.” With an effort she turns on her side with her back facing him.

Bull huffs. In another life she'd have made a good Ben-Hassrath, or maybe he's just easier to read than he thinks. Or he's found someone with a cocky arrogance to match his own.

There's nothing hot about that. Nothing at all.

“What happened to the Qunari after they killed your man?” he asks her back, and she laughs darkly.

“What do you think?”

 

_The Emerald Graves_

“Wait…just a second…”

The tent air is heavy with the scent of arousal. She's splayed out before him, naked from the waist up with her pants halfway down her thighs and his fingers buried between her legs.

“You're doing good, boss.” He can't see her eyes, wrapped as they are in her leather breastband, but he sees the faint flush of pink at his praise, across her cheeks and all the way down to her magnificent tits. Her teeth are sunk into her bottom lip, nails digging hard into her hands with the effort not to cast.

 _Keep it in, Saarebas,_ he pleads silently. _Let me make you come._ He hates to leave a job half done. At least she can't see the hunger on his face.

“What do you need?”

She shifts restlessly. “Can you do that thing again? Where you…?”

“This?” He curls his fingers inside her and she writhes under him, but there's no flicker of lightning.

“Yes, _fuck,_ yes.”

“Quiet again now.” There's just ragged breathing and the wet sound of his fingers in her cunt, even when her back arches abruptly and her toes curl, orgasm finally overtaking her. And he's proud to see that even when her mouth is open in a soundless scream of ecstasy, she's still kept a lid on her magic. “Good,” he murmurs, still lazily pumping his fingers to draw out her climax - she's earned it, after all. “That was fucking beautiful, boss.”

“About time,” she sighs, stretching like a cat as his hand leaves her. “Have I passed your test now, Ben-Hassrath?”

“The first one.” Bull eases onto his side next to her, and can't resist fondling one bare breast, tracing a cunt-slicked finger around the wide, dark aureole.

“Are you sure I can't do anything for you?” she asks coyly.

“You just did.” His hand falls to the soft flesh of her belly, marked with faint silvery lines, and he debates whether it might be better to keep his mouth shut. “Did it live?” he asks finally, and she stiffens. He imagines he can feel her piercing glare even through the blindfold.

“I don't know what you mean.”

He tugs the leather band free, and she stares obstinately away from him.

“Fair enough,” he says, and is surprised to see her eyes shine with unshed tears.

“She's with my parents,” she says at last. “Merc life was no good for a baby, and now  _this_ …nobody knows.”

If Leliana doesn't know, he'll eat his eyepatch. “I won't be the one to tell them.”

“No?” Her voice cracks. “What about the Ben-Hassrath?”

“I don't see how it's relevant.” _They'd want to know, Hissrad._ But he stamps down the thought. It's enough that he knows, for now. Leave the kid out of it unless there's no choice.

“I believe you,” she says wonderingly. “I don't know why I should.”

“Perhaps I'm not as much of an asshole as you think,” he jokes, relieved to see her sardonic smile return.

“No,” she says. “I don't think that's it.” She wriggles back into her pants, content to leave her chest bare. “So, does the Qun have rules about what you do now?”

Maybe not specific ones, but he's pretty sure he should go. “What do you want me to do?”

“You know what I want you to do.” He could do it, too, could have her ready to go again in no time at all, show her what he's really capable of… “But since that's off the menu, I was hoping you might just hold me.”

Is that more or less dangerous than fucking? Every moment he spends with this woman feels like teetering on the edge of a cliff. He thinks he's helping to make her less hazardous, but to him she might as well be a barrel of _gaatlok_ with a lit fuse.

Pillowing his cheek on one massive arm, he wraps the other around her waist and pulls her close, all too aware that she can feel how hard he is. “Stop that,” he growls when she wriggles her backside against him. “Or I'll leave.”

“Your loss,” she grumbles.

Her hair smells of vanilla and cardamom, a bit like the tamassrans back in Seheron - he wonders if she oils it to get that glossy sheen, if it's a recipe she learned from her mother. Hopes one day soon, when this is all over, she might have a chance to pass it on to her daughter.

And there he goes again, thinking like a human. Worse, like a Vashoth. He knew this was dangerous. But she's warm and soft with her skin bare against his, and he can forget for a moment about the constant pain of his injuries and just breathe in her scent of sweat and spice. Perhaps he'll dream of a cottage in the Free Marches, a dark-haired, fat-legged baby chased by a laughing woman with bare feet and love in her eyes, the whispered word _kadan._


	5. Chapter 5

_Emprise du Lion_

While they’ve been keeping up their unconventional training, she also learns from Dorian, Vivienne and Solas. She’s also been getting instruction on how to be a Knight-Enchanter, which earns Bull’s approval as a warrior.

“You won’t need me around any more soon,” he jokes when she invites him to accompany her to Emprise du Lion, and she gives him an enigmatic smile in return.

“You still have your uses.”

Whatever she’s doing with the others, he’s happy as long as it doesn’t interfere with their own activities. If anything it seems to help: behind closed doors he can bring her to a shuddering finish and there’s little more than a hint of static in the air, just enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

A treacherous part of him hopes it never goes away completely.

Now it’s time to make things harder. He introduces a new rule: when he says, she’s not allowed to move. Predictably just the suggestion is enough to make her twitchy; the more she thinks about not moving, the more her limbs shake and her muscles spasm, her whole body jerking when he brushes her clit with a moistened thumb.

“I can keep you still, boss,” he growls. “Need me to tie you up, just say the word.”

All he gets in return is a furious glare.

They’re holed up at Suledin Keep the night she finally cracks. By the time they reach Imshael she’s seen enough to need a target for her rage, and the demon fits the bill neatly. It’s a savage, messy, hard fight and that’s the only excuse he can think of for missing it, for not knowing until she turns up at his door pale and shaking.

“I nearly lost it,” she says, unable to meet his eyes. “Towards the end I was backed into a corner, and I nearly lit up the whole fucking place.”

“But you didn’t, boss.”

“Not this time.” Her lips tremble. “It was closer than it should have been. I could have killed you all - fuck, I don’t know if I would have even walked out of there alive. It can’t happen again. It’s too much power. I don’t want...I can’t…”

“Hey.” Bull draws the shaken Inquisitor to his chest.

“Bind me,” she pleads, her voice little more than a rough whisper. “Tame me. Whatever it takes, I don't care.”

That night he introduces her to pain, lashed to a sconce in the wall with her legs spread, under strict directions not to move or cry out as he stripes her back with his belt. She's tough, tougher perhaps than she realised, even if he's going easy on her this first time.

“That's enough,” he says when she's taken twenty strokes without a sound. Leaving her tied, he retrieves a salve from amongst his things before opening a window, letting the icy air cool her flushed skin.

“I might have to do that harder next time,” he murmurs, wishing his hands were less rough as he spreads the salve over her back. “Take you deeper, maybe even let you think you might die.” He pauses. “I'm talking about choking, boss. You think you could be good with that?”

“I trust you,” she whispers, and his heart swells.

“Turn around,” he rasps.

She twists to face him, her face puffy with silent tears. “Are we doing this now?”

“No.” It's awkward with the cold aggravating his injuries, but he manoeuvres himself to kneel in front of her. “We're doing _this.”_

Her hoarse gasp sends the blood rushing to his groin, as much as the heady scent and taste of her, the feeling of her slick, hot cunt under his tongue. He doesn't stop when she moans, doesn't stop when she twists and writhes - she's earned this, an uncomplicated release. And it's beautiful when it comes, a full-body shudder and a shout almost of anguish.

“You know,” she says as he unties the rope from her wrists, “I've been with enough men to know when they're doing that because they think they should, and when they're enjoying it.”

“Nothing wrong with taking pride in my work, boss.” Himself, he's never gotten why anyone would see eating pussy as a chore. “Doesn't mean we're going to fuck.”

She smirks, and it's fucking adorable. “Sure, Bull.”

When she's gone, he leaves the window open.

 

_Halamshiral_

“Still,” he growls in her ear. “Calm.” His hand tightens a fraction around her throat. “You’re panicking again.”

She stops thrashing, and he lets her breathe, the fuzziness around the edges of her vision receding. A twist of his wrist and the object inside her presses deeper.

She was unsure when he first brought it out, a polished stone phallus the width of a human wrist, curved and bulbous and covered in bumps and ridges.

That was before she felt what he could do with it.

Now it hits that sweet spot, light-headedness making the pleasure all the more intense. Inadvertently she arches, straining at her silken bonds until they snap.

“Shit, boss.” Bull's weight shifts from behind her, his bad knee cracking as he stands. “Now we have to start all over again.”

 _“Please.”_ She'd been so close this time, she almost sobs as the sensation fades. “I barely moved, the thread’s too thin…”

“Well,” he says thoughtfully. “We've got a way around that.”

“Yes,” she gasps without thinking. “I'll wear it. Just please, let me finish.”

“You sure?” She hears him rummage in a box, the tinkle of metal. “Pretty sure you said you'd never let me put it on you. Only you weren't that polite.”

She's beyond pride, bent forward over the bed with a throbbing need at her core that she can't relieve, wriggle and clench as she might. “Chain me,” she gasps. “I'm begging you, please, just do it.”

Deft hands tug the silken thread free from her wrists, from where it criss-crosses her body and wraps around her neck. “Up on your elbows,” he orders before the leather bands are clasped around her throat and waist, joined by lengths of silver chain. Then he pushes her back down, fastening thick cuffs around her wrists. A sharp tug on the chain leash cuts off her air and she feels the kiss of smooth stone once more between her damp thighs.

Unable to speak, all she can do is moan, at first a plea and then a low sound of relief as her greedy cunt clenches around the ridged length.

“They did a good job,” he says conversationally. “You look almost like a proper _saarebas.”_

“Ungh,” she replies in annoyance before a hard thrust makes her eyes roll back. It's a small comfort to know that he had his toys commissioned in a shop in Val Royeaux - she'd die of shame if she thought Harrit had any hand in crafting her harness. 

“Remember what I said?” Bull releases her collar enough for speech.

“You'll have to remind me,” she says hoarsely. “You talk a lot.”

He chuckles, flipping her over to lie awkwardly on her shackled wrists. “I said I'd chain you when you begged me.”

“If I'd known you were planning on talking me to death -” Words are lost to her as he pumps and twists, his free hand dropping the leash to stroke a thumb around her clit. His reason for using the stone rod on her, when rumour has it he's equipped well enough not to need it, is that he doesn't want to be focused on his own pleasure during these sessions - but his expression isn't one of a man who's not enjoying himself.

“Come, boss,” he entreats, “come for me,” and she flies apart with an intensity that tests the strength of those dainty Orlesian chains.

In the boneless afterglow, she lets him ease her onto her side, his big hands surprisingly gentle as he cleans her.

“Sure you don't want to leave this on for the ball?” He runs a finger under the leather collar. “It's pretty hot.”

“Mmm. It'd get the court talking, sure, but it will be easier to stop an assassination if my hands are free.”

“Free mages? Interesting idea,” he muses, massaging her unbound wrists. “I'll run it by the antaam.”

“I'm not sure they'll go for it.” She leans back against his chest, lost in the simple intimacy of his touch. “They're still getting used to it here in the south.”

His lips brush her shoulder - not a kiss, not quite - and then the bed creaks with the loss of his weight. “Guess we should get dressed, then.”

“I wonder if I should have gotten a mask.”

“Oh, I ordered one but they said it would take a couple more weeks.”

It takes her a moment. “Bull…I meant for the ball.”

“Oh.” He blinks slowly. “Yeah, I guess that could have worked too.”

“I'm not wearing -”

“We'll see, boss, we'll see.” He smiles, and her heart flutters uncomfortably. “See you in an hour.”


	6. Chapter 6

_The Exalted Plains_

The tent is gently buffeted by the wind, sweeping across the plains and making the long grasses whisper. The body pressed against her back is a welcome respite from the dawn chill.

“Shh, _imekari.”_ A warm hand caresses her fluttering belly. “Sleep while you can, and let your ma and I do the same.”

Saanaz smiles at his voice hoarse from sleep, the soft rendition of an old Marcher lullaby. Beneath his hand the squirming baby stills as if listening.

“He likes it when you sing.”

“She does.”

“She?”

A rich laugh - how she’s missed his laugh, but she couldn’t say why. Hasn’t he been with her this whole time? “She. My two fearless girls.”

Shouting. The language of her parents, harsh in her ears as she struggles to the clifftop. The clash of steel, blood on the rocks. _His_ blood, oh, so much blood...blind, untrammelled rage, the blue and white flash of lightning and the stench of charred flesh, bodies littering the shore. The only one she sees is his, dark eyes lifeless, slow bleeding from a thousand wounds. He only went to hunt but they hunted him. She stumbles, trying to reach him but it's her own people holding her back. _He's_ _gone, Naz, he's gone._  But if there's no one to save, who is that screaming? 

Then pain, searing, rushing pain, the dark interior of a tent, water pressed to her lips, hushed, familiar voices, hands rubbing her back, a final push...then a child, impossibly tiny and slicked with fluids, cradled to her breast and all she can do is weep.

“I can’t,” she whispers brokenly. “I can’t.”

An arm tightens around her waist and for a single desperate moment she thinks...but no, it’s Bull. The wind-blown grass grows not in the Free Marches but the Exalted Plains and her lover is dead, long dead, and the daughter he never met is far away in her homeland where his blood stained the rocks.

More and more often they find themselves waking like this, sometimes with his hand on her breast or his thigh between hers, and if she wakes first she’s careful not to disturb him. Is she so starved for touch that she would imagine affection in the embrace of a Ben-Hassrath? This morning she jerks away as if burned and he’s instantly alert, his hand reflexively reaching for his axe.

“Something wrong, boss?”

“Nothing,” she mutters, avoiding his gaze. “I need air, that’s all.”

Outside the Plains are washed in grey. A wolf pack passes in the distance, one or two casting yellow-eyed stares in the direction of the Inquisition camp before wisely continuing on.

“Inquisitor.” A scout salutes her, then rummages in his belt for a roll of parchment. “Dispatch for you, Ser.”

She reaches out a hand to take it, but it’s the blank-faced Qunari behind her he’s addressing. Bull scans the missive, his expression unchanging.

“Anything important?”

He grunts. “Maybe. I’ll let you know when I’ve run it by Red.” Is it her imagination, or is there a flicker of unease in his single eye? “I came to check you’re OK.”

“I told you,” she says irritably.

“You said you needed air. Most times there’s a reason for that.”

“Apart from to breathe?” When he doesn't respond, she huffs in annoyance. “Memories. You know what that's like. They just…take you by surprise sometimes.”

After a moment’s pause, he nods. “Need anything?”

“It's probably too early for a drink,” she jokes. “But if we wait for the others to get up, there's plenty of things around here to kill. We could start with that village full of demons if you feel up to it?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He matches her tone, light and inconsequential, but his eye bores through her and she's ambushed by a feeling that lances sharply through her gut - the desire to be seen, to be known, to bare not just her body to him but her soul.

 _He's the enemy,_ she reminds herself even though she can't feel the truth of it. _You want to betray everything that matters because you're too weak to be alone?_

Abruptly she turns from him, a shiver running through her despite not feeling the cold. “Fine,” she says curtly. “Just be ready.” There's a silence behind her until she finally hears his heavy steps retreat.

 

* * *

 

_With some reservations, Herald has agreed to discuss an alliance. We will be at the rendezvous point on the agreed date._

 

* * *

 

_The Storm Coast_

The day begins well enough. For the Iron Bull at least, the Inquisitor’s thighs clamped hard around his head as she crests silently. She runs hot and cold, but when she’s hot...it’s almost enough to drive away the sense of unease that’s been dogging him since he first received the missive from home. He emerges from their tent with a swagger in his step, ready to take on whatever the Vints throw at them.

It doesn’t take long for shit to go downhill.

She doesn't like Gatt. Shit, at this point he doesn't much like Gatt. Kid had a temper from back when they rescued him, but was he always such a snide little bastard? Bull can't help but wonder if Gatt’s under orders to bring him down a peg or two, or if it's for his own enjoyment.

But he can’t help but notice that the worst of her irritation is reserved for when Gatt turns his scorn on Bull himself, the narrowing of her eyes, the near-imperceptible thinning of her lips. Time was, he thinks with guilty amusement, the elf might have received an accidental shock for his insolence. As it is he cuts the conversation short before Sanaz can be provoked into a more deliberate show of aggression.

“You know him?” Krem asks when they’re out of earshot.

“Did once,” he replies, then it’s down to business.

The next time he sees Krem it’s from a great distance. His lieutenant is little more than a smudge of colour on the hillside, the rest of the Chargers arrayed around him. Pale faces turn towards his vantage point on the cliff - they know they’re fucked if he doesn’t call the retreat. Know it, but they wait anyway.

Sanaz is watching him too, and Gatt. Gatt, the little fucker...he doesn’t seem too surprised at the turn of events, or maybe he just doesn’t give a shit, confident that Bull will follow orders. Follow the Qun.

He looks at _her._ Nails digging into her hand, the other wrapped tight around her staff. She could order him one way or another, but she’s silent, deliberately so, even as her eyes flicker to the hillside and back with rising panic. This is on him.

Gatt’s getting edgy too, realising that perhaps Hissrad is less predictable than he’d thought - it’s almost worth the sacrifice to see the disbelief on his face when Bull raises the horn to his lips, half convinced the sound won’t come out and he’ll be frozen up here on the cliffs, watching his little family get slaughtered.

But the retreat signal is loud and clear, and he imagines their relief as they scramble away. He won’t test their loyalty that way ever again - won’t need to.

Gatt’s furious, and Sanaz is looking at him with an expression that for once he can’t read. Instead of meeting their eyes he looks out to sea, watching the flaming pieces of the dreadnought scatter, thinks, _My soul is dust._

* * *

 _  
_ _You are not Tal-Vashoth, Iron Bull, not really._

 _Well that's a fuckin' relief._  
  
_No more than our Inquisitor, whose parents left the Qun before she was born. You are a man who made a choice... possibly the first of your life._

_I've always liked fighting. What if I turn savage, like the other Tal-Vashoth?_

_You have the Inquisition, you have the Inquisitor… and you have me._

_Thanks, Solas._

* * *

 

She can sense he's not ready to talk about it, but he seems content to have her by his side. If the Chargers know what nearly transpired they don't let it show. They laugh, drink, clap their commander on the back, and he goes along with the charade.

In the dark of the tent he's far from sleep - she can hear him running through one breathing exercise after another, but they do little to ease the tension in his scarred frame.

Tentatively she reaches for him, feels his breath stop as her hand trails down his belly and lower, palming the clothed length of his shaft. But no sooner does his cock stir than his hand grips firmly around her wrist.

“Let me do this for you,” she whispers.

“No.” The rejection is softened by the stroke of his thumb on the tendons of her wrist, the way he keeps his hold on her when he positions her hand over his heart. She never knows if he eventually falls asleep, succumbing before he does to a slumber mercifully devoid of dreams.

 

* * *

 

_Salt-spray smell of Seheron. Lost in smoke from a burning ship. Guilt at not feeling guiltier._

* * *

 

_Skyhold_

Bull wakes from a fitful sleep. The knife wound burns and itches interminably, but he's seen the poison at work enough times to know it could be much worse. Pain is nothing new for the Iron Bull - it's what gives him his edge in battle, what lets him know he's alive.

It's easier to deal with than the emptiness in his soul.

 _You're a good man,_ she'd said to him, silver eyes ablaze. She, of all people, thought him worth fighting for even against his own despair. And in that moment there’d been nothing guarded about her, no hint of the resentment she wore like armour, the distance she kept between them even when he reduced her to a quivering, incoherent mess.

No, in that moment she'd let him see inside her soul, and what he saw there shocked him out of his self-pitying stupor.

Passion. The spark he'd trained her to control flaring not with anger, not with violence but with raw need. An entreaty to break down the walls of reserve that, despite everything, remained between them. An invitation to give and receive in equal measure, to become one.

Thinking of it now, something creeps into the void in his soul. Something long felt but not acknowledged, something like…

_Want._


	7. Chapter 7

The thought of assassins infiltrating Skyhold once again - as if the incident with Josephine wasn't bad enough - sends a chill through her blood that the scalding bath water can't dispel. Worse, this time the men were on the Inquisition payroll. She'll have to have an uncomfortable discussion with Cullen, she thinks as she rubs soap between her toes. But first she should send someone to check on Bull. He seemed confident that he could fight off the poison, but the body can be unpredictable. To lose him… 

Clambering from the tub, she does her best to wrap herself in the irritatingly human-sized towel. Fuck it, she decides. Alone in her quarters it makes more sense to go naked than to preserve her non-existent modesty behind a scrap of fabric. 

An unbidden memory swims to the surface: her child's father just after he joined the Valo-kas, slack-jawed as he saw her bathing in a river with the other mercs. _Come in,_ she'd teased, _you can wash my back_. The first time he saw her naked, but far from the last. Nights spent at a distance from camp, his arm wrapped around her waist for leverage as he drove into her, fervent words of devotion and the frantic, messy clash of their mouths… 

 _Gone_. Towelling her hair harder than necessary, she emerges from behind the screen that shields the bathtub from the rest of her quarters. She glances up and the towel falls from nerveless fingers. 

There's no inch of her body Bull hasn't seen before. But now, under his appraising eye, she feels utterly, truly naked. Each scar, each blemish, each ravage of childbirth illuminated in the late afternoon light. For a moment she feels he can see right through her, and it's not entirely unpleasant. 

“Stop.” She had been reaching for the discarded towel, but with an effort she straightens and meets his gaze. “You've got nothing to hide, boss. Let me look at you.”

After the longest time he rises from the bed and crosses to her, and when his hands rest on her hips there's a barely perceptible tremor to his touch. 

“Bull,” she says, remembering his brush with the assassins, “is everything…are you alright?”

He looks down at his hand, the thumb tracing an erratic circle on her damp skin. “That's not poison,” he says almost wonderingly. “That's you.”

“I'm not doing anything.”

“You don't have to.” Bull runs his fingers up her bare flank, grazes the outside of her breast with his knuckles and now she's the one shivering. “Tell me what you want.”

“You know,” she says, voice cracking. 

“Tell me.”

Her mouth is dry; perhaps the only part of her that is. “You.”

“I'm here, Sanaz. You've got me.” Has he ever used her name before? It's always _boss_ , or _saarebas_. Her head is beginning to feel fuzzy as he backs her up to the wall, his voice fuelling a spreading fire in her belly. “So tell me. _What. Do. You. Want?”_

“I want to look at you.” She runs her hands down his broad, scarred chest and for once he doesn't restrain her. “Touch you. Taste you. I want to see you lose control.”

At this he flinches. “Are you so sure that's a good idea?” 

“You asked me what I want.” Emboldened, she twines her arms around his neck, her lips brushing close to his ear. “It's up to you if you want to give it to me.”

“What _I_ want? _Saarebas_ , if I lose control, I'll break you. That's not something you should ask for.”

“Do I look so easily broken?” As she speaks she sinks down to her knees, deftly tugging loose his boots and ankle brace. When she makes her way up to his belt she's arrested by the pull of his fingers in her hair, and she feels as much as hears his shaky exhalation when she rests her face against his thigh. His grip tightens and loosens, the burn at her scalp fading to a caress of blunt fingertips then returning. 

“You don't know what you're asking,” he says, and behind each careful word she feels the weight of guilt, shame, trepidation. 

“I trust you,” she answers but it's the wrong thing to say - he stiffens, pulls away from her to sit back on the edge of the bed. She's left kneeling, suddenly self-conscious again. “It's true.”

“You trust me.” Bull doesn't meet her searching gaze. “Because I'm Tal-Vashoth.”

“ _Fuck_ , Bull…no.” Dignity forgotten, she crawls to him, resting on her heels and clasping his hands. “Look at me,” she demands. “I trust you because you're you. You wouldn't do anything to me that I don't want. That's not the Qun, that's who _you_ are.”

His larger hands enfold hers for a moment, then he leans back, a gesture she takes as an invitation. But he surprises her when her fingers go to work once more on his belt buckle. 

_“Katoh.”_

Sanaz stills, confused. “Stop?” 

Unexpectedly, he chuckles. “No. I mean yeah, that's what it means, but…it's a watchword. You feel uncomfortable any time, say _katoh_ and I'll stop.”

“Sounds fair.” Relieved, she begins to tug his belt loose. “You have to promise me something, though.”

“I'm listening.”

“If I don't say it, you don't stop.”

Bull's laugh comes from deep within his belly. “You think you know what you're getting into, don't you, _Saarebas_?” As she eases his pants over his hips he grasps her by the waist, hauling her into his lap as if she weighs no more than an elf. “You don't.”

“And you think you do?” His cock is trapped between their bodies, hard and heavy, and when she rocks her core up against it she's gratified to hear his breath catch. 

“Careful,” he growls. 

“Or…?” She rakes her nails down his chest, laughing when he retaliates with a sharp bite on her shoulder. Relentless, she writhes against him, coating his length with her arousal. 

 _“Saarebas.”_ He's breathing heavily, squeezing firm handfuls of her naked buttocks but whether to hold her still or to press her closer to him it's difficult to tell - the motion between them has moved beyond conscious thought, a mindless, slick friction that makes her sigh and whimper. 

“That's right,” she manages to gasp. “I need you to tame me, remember?”

Her words fuel something primal in Bull, and with a snarl he has her flipped on her back, sinking deep into her velvet heat. They're frozen, her legs wrapped around his waist and his hand entwined with hers, pressed into the mattress above her head. His free hand hovers, seemingly unsure where to land; it comes close to her face, her breast, her hip before he settles on propping himself up on one elbow. 

“Fuck.” 

“What's wrong?” 

“Nothing.” His thick shaft is buried inside her, twitching deep against her walls. “You feel… _fuuuck_. So good.” To her surprise he's trembling again, as if he's holding back a tremendous force.

“Let go, Bull.” She tightens around him, and when that's not enough she traces her hand down his chest, power building beneath her fingertips. “Show me what you want to do to me. _Let go.”_ At _go_ she brushes one of his flat, dark nipples, releasing a sharp spark of energy into his skin. 

With a roar he arches above her, drawing out and slamming back in hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. Fuck, it's everything she imagined and _more_ , the furious collision of skin on skin, the rhythmic slap of his heavy sac against her wet folds, the savage thrust of his hard length driving home again and again. She rises to meet him, grips tight around him but for the most part she's content to let him batter like a storm against her body, clay in his hands as he positions her how he wants her. 

On the bed, up against the wall, over the balustrade…eventually they're on the floor, one of her ankles hooked over his horns and the other clutched bruisingly tight in his fingers when she draws in a ragged breath, gasps, _“katoh.”_

Immediately he goes still. She opens her eyes to see him scanning her face, searching for some sign of pain, fear, even discomfort. But all he gets is a lazy smile. “You stopped.”

Chest heaving with exertion, it takes him a moment to regain speech. “You didn't think I could?” 

“I knew you could.” Looming over her, he makes her feel small, almost fragile. It's a strange feeling for her but not unwelcome. “I just wanted to make sure you knew it too.”

There's a gleam of pride in his eye, quickly hidden behind mock severity. 

“You'll have to pay for that,” he grumbles. “Get on your hands and knees.”

Grinning, she scrambles to obey and soon she's cursing, screaming his name, begging hoarsely for _more, more._

When at last they're spent he draws her to his side, hand resting possessively on her flank. 

“Josie’s going to kill me,” she says, surveying the destruction. 

Bull shrugs. “Can't say I didn't warn you.”

“I never liked that sofa anyway. Too small.”

“Orlesian crap.” He picks up a splintered leg. “You need something sturdier.”

“If we're going to try that move again.” She burrows into his side and is startled by the rush of warmth that flows through her veins when their skin presses together. It feels a lot like…affection? “Bull…”

“Yeah boss?” 

She's not even sure what she was about to say, but even the casual formality is enough to make her retreat from it. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, you too.” He stretches, disentangling their bodies before sitting up. “I better go.”

 _What did you think?_ she berates herself, silencing the unwelcome sting of disappointment. _He was going to spend the night? Read you poetry and talk about the future?_ “Good idea. I need another bath anyway.” 

But she won't do that right away. First she'll lie atop the sheets that smell like him, explore the bruises and scratches and sweet aches he left behind. For now she watches him gather his things, unabashedly admiring the roll of his muscles beneath silvery skin. 

“Like what you see?” he asks with a smirk and for once she's lost for words. In truth she's ready to go again, and she suspects he'd be up to the task. It would be simple enough to ask him - she wouldn't even need to speak. 

Bull shrugs on his pants and the moment passes. “See you later then, boss.” She half rises and he shakes his head. “You stay put. You've earned a rest.”

She can't argue with that. His own appreciative gaze lingers on her body like a final caress and then he's gone, leaving her sprawled, sated and exhausted, on the ruined carpet. 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, my baby decided 3.5 weeks more was too long to wait and things got...hectic.

_I trust you._

Bull shifts restlessly in his seat, glowering at Krem when he shoots a curious glance in his direction.

He's never trusted himself less. But the way she looked up at him, her eyes wide and guileless, the sincerity in her voice…her simple faith in him makes him question everything. She was right, wasn't she? He let go, and it was fucking _good,_ but he wasn't lost. To break her trust in him would be to betray himself. When had it become that way? When he became Tal-Vashoth, or before that?

And when had she begun to trust him? Long before the Storm Coast she had placed herself at his mercy, put her safety in his hands and told him her deepest secrets, all the while putting on a show of defiance, until he couldn't tell who had played who.

“Fuck,” he curses, and Krem raises his brows. “Nothing,” he says in answer to the unspoken query. “Gotta go.”

It's dusk. War councils, diplomatic meetings, training sessions should all have wrapped up by now. He takes the stairs to her quarters two at a time then pauses at the final door, his heart hammering.

“Is someone there?” he hears from inside. “Come in.”

Still he hesitates, his hand resting on the polished door frame until there's an impatient tread across the floor and he finds himself face to face with the Inquisitor. He sees the annoyance on her face replaced by a wary hopefulness.

“Bull?” she starts to say. “What are you -”

He kisses her.

It's tentative at first, then she opens to him, and with a growl he pulls her body close, her core pressed hard against the muscle of his thigh as he plunders her warm, wet mouth. She's not shy, her nails raking the back of his neck and her tongue tangling urgently with his. When her sharp teeth nip at his lower lip he spins her around to crash against the wall.

“I came to…” He shakes his head, drunk on the scent and the feel of her. “I had to… _fuck.”_

“Tell me.” The hoarse, pleading cadence of her voice is enough to shatter his final reserve.

“You trust me.” Bull trembles as he reaches to cup the side of her face, forgetting to breathe when she leans into his touch, eyes fluttering closed.

“Yes,” she whispers.

Their next kiss is soft and lingering, full of yearning and promise. He can hardly recognise the emotions that flood through him - they're foreign but somehow comforting. _Savage_ is the last word he'd use to describe the tenderness he feels, the overwhelming urge to shelter and protect the fierce, unbreakable woman in his arms; to be sheltered and protected in turn.

Let them be bound no longer by labels and titles. Let him drown in her sweet warmth.

With a knowing look, she takes his hand and leads him to her bed. Layers are stripped away and discarded, fingers and mouths exploring bared skin.

“Do I have to be silent?” she murmurs, caressing his scarred hip. “Or still?”

“Not tonight.” Blunt fingertips slip between her thighs, spreading her arousal. “Just be you.”

He guides her back on to the bed and settles on the floor between her spread legs. Savours her musky scent before licking a stripe up the centre of her, pushing her strong thighs wide apart to reach every inch of her flushed pink folds with his lips and tongue. She writhes under him like she's possessed, until he has to pin her down to still the frantic bucking of her hips.

“Fuuuu - Bull, _Bull,_ please…”

Fingers push and curl inside her and his lips close around her swollen nub, and she arches off the bed with an anguished sob.

Reluctant to let her go he rests his head on her thigh, lips just brushing her silvery skin. He feels her fingers trail down to stroke the sensitive base of his horns, hears her sighed, “Thank you.”

“Nothing I haven't done for you before.”

The scratch of her nails is blissful torture. “You didn't kiss me before.”

“Yeah.” Looking up, he lets his stubble scrape gently against her inner thighs, strokes a path up her belly with his fingers and watches her eyes soften. “Wasted an opportunity there, didn’t I?”

“We can make up for it,” she suggests, then turns her face away, suddenly shy. “If you want.”

“Hey.” With an effort he eases himself off the floor, lifting her legs with him until they're wrapped around his waist. “I want every part of you.” Teasing her mouth open he lets her taste herself on his tongue, her strong legs drawing him closer to her heat.

“Bull…” Sanaz touches his face with enquiring fingers. His chin, his lips, his aquiline nose, finally tracing his eye patch until she reaches its fastening. “Is…is this OK?”

He's had partners want to look at it before. Usually he indulges them - whatever, it's all part of the exotic thrill of bedding an oxman. But with her he knows it's different. She's asking him to bare a part of himself, something he's never shown her before. “Yeah,” he answers softly.

Disgust, fascination, pity…if there's a reaction, Bull's seen it before. Sanaz simply looks, her gaze flickering over the mass of scar tissue where his eye used to be, then gives him a tiny smile.

“Lie with me.” Tugging at his hand, she shifts so that they're lying the length of the bed, his legs tangled with hers.

“Didn't we do this already?”

Sanaz smirks, batting her lashes coquettishly. “If you mean did we fuck, then sure.” She leans up and captures his mouth in a soft, lingering kiss. Her body presses to his, warm and surprisingly yielding. “I want to give you more than that.”

A windy day in Haven, her voice coolly amused as she asked him if he'd never truly made love. Is that what she means? It certainly seems that way when her hand finds its way between them, guiding the tip of his member between her swollen lips.

“Is this what you want?” she whispers.

“Yes.” _Connected with someone, body and soul._ “Fuck, yes.” Agonisingly slow he sinks into her, savouring the velvety grip of her sheath around him, the tiny hitches in her breath as she adjusts to his girth. He can't keep from tasting her, teasing her, warm breath and languid tongue down her long throat, a sharp nip on her breast that makes her clench and whimper.

Languorous thrusts are interspersed with the slide of tongues and murmured, half-realised words, until he can't tell where his skin ends and hers begins. There's just the movement of their bodies as slow and inexorable as the tide, and a climax that builds gradually before breaking like a summer storm, a cry torn from his throat that he almost can't recognise as his own, so harsh and tender it is.

They come back to themselves gradually. She's astride him, her dark hair tickling his chest until she looks up and into his face. There are no more walls between them; her gaze is clear and open, all her strength and vulnerability on display.

“What now?” she asks, smiling when he tugs on a lock of her hair.

“You wanna go again already?” he jokes. “Might have to give me a minute.”

“Bull.” She punches him lightly on the shoulder. “What now?”

He looks away; it's too much. Everything feels raw and exposed, and he can't deflect with humour like he wants to - she won't let him. Her wide silver eyes demand an answer, a plan, a meaning. When he doesn't give it to her he feels her slump, already beginning to withdraw behind her sharp defences.

“Sanaz.” He grabs her hand where she's taken it from his chest, gripping it firmly between his maimed fingers. “This…us. It was…”

“A mistake. That's fine.” This time it's her turn to look away, her tone brittle.

“No,” he says, sharply enough to drag her eyes back to his face. “It was good. I'm trying to say…” He sighs. “That if you want, we could -”

She shakes her head emphatically. “We're done making this about what I want,” she insists. “Or even what I need. If we're going to do this I need to know it's what _you_ want.” Her voice softens. “What you need.”

Her eyes widen when he sits up, drawing her close to him and burying his face in the soft skin of her neck. “ _Kadan,”_ he murmurs, “it always was.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suuuch a long time! I hope those of you still around and invested in this story like my conclusion. I think it will need some edits but right now fuck it, let's get it out there!

The _saarebas_ harness started out as something of a joke: Bull taking a throwaway remark to its most outrageous conclusion. It's still around mostly because he likes the look of the chains against her burnished silver skin. Sanaz likes how subversive it feels; her own little “fuck you” to the Qun, even though, as Bull is more than happy to point out, it's not the Qun getting fucked.

It's morning, one of many leisurely mornings since the threat of Corypheus no longer hangs over their heads. There's still work to be done, but there's more time for privacy and intimacy, more room to breathe and talk and explore this new territory. Now that they understand each other, no time between them is ever wasted.

When the last buckle is undone he slaps her playfully on the flank before easing his weight off the bed. She hears his surprisingly light tread as he moves to the water basin.

“You good, kadan?”

“Mmmm.” Brushing back sweaty strands of hair from her face, she rolls onto her back and admires the view. “Better than good.”

“Yeah you are.” He returns her frank stare with a grin. “You don't seem so on edge.”

Remembering the reason for her apprehension, she shrugs lazily. “I don't have the energy, after that.”

“That's what I'm here for.”

Clean and clothed, they stand on her balcony in companionable silence. From this vantage point the Skyhold courtyard is just visible - there's a bustle down there that hasn't been seen in months, the fortress preparing for an important arrival. Sanaz rubs between her eyes with a thumb and finger, a hint of her unease returning. “I should go down.”

“Yep.” Bull's hand rests on the small of her back, his thumb drawing a small circle on her spine.

“Josie will be losing her mind.”

“She will,” he agrees.

She shuffles, chews on her knuckle. “I should be down there already.”

He looks down at her. “But you're not.”

“No.”

There's a minor commotion in the courtyard: a small contingent of Inquisition soldiers escorting a plain carriage through the main gate. She catches a glimpse of Josephine's anxious face turned in their direction and ducks back into the shadows.

It doesn't go unnoticed. “Hey, kadan,” Bull says conversationally. “You want to tell me why you're not down there?”

“I don't know,” she answers automatically. But she does, she does. It's just that the words put a lump in her throat, the weight of shame rising up to choke her.

He doesn't make her meet his eyes, just draws her close to his chest and when he feels her slump against him, softly says, “Tell me.”

Finally it spills forth, her words tumbling over each other like stones caught up in flood water until she can't even tell if she's making sense.

The violence and terror of that day on the cliffs, and the rushed labour that followed. The journey home to her parents’ village in a haze of pain and grief, the tiny child that just wouldn't stop _needing_ her, when there was nothing of her to give.

The baby's pale lashes and soft white hair so much like her father's that when she looked at her all she could see was the blood caked on his temple, spilling into the sand from what seemed like a thousand wounds.

Back in her family's embrace she still moved in a fog. It was her mother who tended to the baby, responded to her cries while Sanaz stared blankly at the floor. Bull is silent as she tells him how the child would be passed to her for feeding, her mother's lips pressed tight in disapproval. In the dark early hours of the morning she would sit, child at her breast and tears streaming, and bite her own arm to muffle her screams.

When the conclave job came through, it was the first time in months she'd felt interest in something beyond sleep.

“I don't understand.” She remembers her mother standing cross-armed in the tiny fisherman's hut, her horns nearly touching the ceiling. “We risked everything, our lives, our _minds,_ to raise our own children.” She shook her head angrily. “And you want to abandon your babe for what…a job?”

“The Valo-kas need me.” It might be true. Either way as a mage, she had a stake in the conclave’s outcome. A Vashoth girl had been found who could nurse the child - it wasn't as if she was old enough to know the difference.

So she rode south with the Valo-kas, her leaking breasts bound tightly and her heart hardened against the daughter she was abandoning.

She looks now to Bull, standing impassive against the morning sun. “I ran away,” she says hoarsely. “I could have stayed. I should have.”

“How'd you feel?” he asks. “After what happened?”

“Empty.” He waits, and she shuts her eyes. “Angry.” She traces the scar on her jaw. “So fucking angry. Like the rage was bubbling up inside me, just waiting to…”

“You didn't run because you didn't care about her, kadan.” Bull catches her hand and lays his own palm over her scarred face. “You were looking out for her.”

Sanaz presses her lips together, willing the tears back behind her eyes. “Because I was afraid I would hurt her. What kind of mother…?” She takes a ragged breath. “And now she won't know me.”

“She will,” Bull says simply. “Not right away, but she'll get to know you. She'll understand.”

He knows better than anyone. The old pain, the rage that used to control her is now under her control, in part thanks to him. If she was treading water when they met, now she commands the waves and the tides.

Down in the courtyard two figures have emerged from the coach. Tall, horned, not young but straight-backed and proud, muscled from a lifetime’s hard work. One of them holds a blanketed bundle, and if they were closer a small, fat fist and a mass of white curls might be visible.

Sanaz wipes her eyes with the back of her hand.

“What are you going to find to talk about with a pair of Tal-Vashoth fisherfolk?” she asks Bull with a weak smile.

He gives the question due consideration before replying, deadpan, “Knots.”

“Bull, no!” Half-laughing, half-crying, she swats at him only to be drawn into a crushing embrace.

“Never mind your parents,” he says with a grin. “Let's go meet your _imekari.”_


End file.
